Niuolahiki Distance Learning (NDL)

Aloha mai,

Here's a quick update from the Hawaiian language community.

Both School Readiness (SB1093 CD1) and the Constitutional Amendment (SB1084 CD1) have passed House and Senate Floor votes! Mahalo nui! It’s been an exciting journey this legislative session. While the School Readiness Program will be administered by the Department of Human Services (not the original plan), the first steps toward our long-term early childhood education program and early learning system in Hawaiʻi have been taken.

As for HB 224, although deferred for this session, it remains alive and moving forward. The measure proposed developing appropriate standards testing for students who are educated in the Hawaiian language. Learn more via the links below.

http://www.oiwi.tv/channels/news/oha-drafts-bill-for-hawaiian-immersion-students/

http://www.oiwi.tv/channels/news/testing-discrimination/

Finally and most importantly, our preschool keiki on Maui need your help with their petition to stop a lottery for incoming kindergarten children to the Kula Kaiapuni Hawaiian immersion program at Pāʻia School. If you support their cause after reading the petition and the various comments, please sign your name to this petition.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/355/548/356/stop-the-pia-school-lottery/

Mahalo, again, for your kōkua e ka ʻohana Niuolahiki.

Please join us this summer at the University of British Columbia for the "Living Our Indigenous Languages" Institute that will bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, faculty, staff, language advocates, community members, policy makers, educators, practitioners, and scholars, who are interested in reclaiming and revitalizing Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered. Ka Moʻolelo >>